The upcoming biopic, The Fire Inside, tells the story of legendary boxer Claressa Shields.
She isn’t any stranger to the highlight, having been a boxing prodigy since her teens. Shields spoke to ClutchPoints over the phone about The Fire Inside and a few of her favorite boxing movies.
Shields specifically name-dropped Million Dollar Baby, Rocky, and Ali as her favorite boxing movies. Will Smith’s portrayal of Muhammad Ali was so convincing that Shields thought he was the icon in real life. “I believed that Will Smith was Muhammad Ali,” Shields confessed. “To seek out out in my older years that Will Smith [was just] playing Ali shows how well he portrayed him.”
In The Fire Inside, Ryan Destiny plays Shields. Just like her experience seeing Smith as Ali, Shields thinks Destiny”absolutely” resembles her in her performance. She specifically identified Destiny’s attire and mannerisms, which were on point.
Brian Tyree Henry plays Shields’ coach, Jason Crutchfield, within the biopic. Shields is a giant fan of him. “I like Brian,” she told me when discussing the Oscar-nominated actor.
Did Claressa Shields give tricks to The Fire Inside biopic star Ryan Destiny?
You’ll think if Destiny was nailing Shields’ mannerisms, the real-life boxer would have had to provide her suggestions. Nevertheless, this was not the forged.
Shields detailed that she and Destiny had an “open line of communication,” but she didn’t hand her suggestions. Destiny would keep Shields posted on her progress while training for the role, but she did ask for advice once.
“She called me at some point and was like, ‘Hey, I have been working really hard — what do you do once you get sore?” Shields recalled. “I said, ‘You rest.’ And he or she was like, ‘You try this?’ I’m like, ‘Yes, absolutely. You rest, you go and get a massage, you are taking a hot bath, you are taking somewhat recovery time.’”
Destiny also asked Shields about her relationship together with her mom. The Fire Inside shows the challenges that they’d. Luckily, the 2 are on higher terms nowadays — “My mom and I even have an excellent relationship now,” Shields said. “And [we] definitely grew closer as I got older.”
But The Fire Inside is about Claressa Shields’ rise. So, their relationship is not pretty much as good because it is nowadays. Even her mom is aware of this. Shields had a “real’ conversation with Destiny about their complex relationship.
“That was something I used to be capable of have an actual conversation together with her about because my mom may be very much still here on this earth, and I’m used to people writing things or putting out videos and making me look a certain way. I didn’t want my mom to experience that and her to feel like she was portrayed mistaken or our relationship was portrayed mistaken,” Shields explained.
Was having a biopic made about her scary?
For some, having a movie made about your life could be intimidating. There are going to be things shown or said that have not been told to anyone. The Fire Inside does feature some intimate details about Shields’ life, but she wasn’t scared by it.
It probably helps that Shields is just not a stranger to the camera. Having a movie made about her was only the following natural step of progression.
“Life, to me, has been in front of cameras. I even have a complete documentary about my life, so it’s like my whole life has already been followed and recorded,” said Shields. “So, a number of highlights in my life, I can return and have a look at. To have a movie that truly gets into the small print of what I went through, I do not think it’s scary — I believe it’s extremely inspiring for people to see what I went through.
“That is the way it turned out. Despite the fact that it doesn’t look good and it wasn’t easy, that is what it looks like now. I believe everybody must see that,” she continued.
Entrusting her story to Barry Jenkins
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If anyone was going to grasp Shields’ story and handle it with care, it was Barry Jenkins. The Moonlight director is coming off his foray into blockbuster filmmaking, directing Mufasa: The Lion King for Disney, but he still has his magic touch.
Shields was admittedly “skeptical” when the concept of The Fire Inside was first brought up. Before signing off on the biopic being made, Claressa Shields wanted to fulfill with the person writing the script.
Enter Jenkins, who sold Shields during a four-to-five-hour chat. Shields enforced that she didn’t need to be depicted as a “victim, but moderately a “victor.”
“Don’t have a look at me like my story is a tragic story; it is not a tragic story,” she said. “I don’t desire [anybody] feeling sorry for me because God made a way for me, and he will proceed to make ways, and he’s never given up on me. God says he knows the desires of your heart, and he knows that my life story can change the world.”
One among the “best” things Shields could have done was get the script from Jenkins. After their heart-to-heart, Shields received a finished script and gave it the green light.
If Claressa Shields didn’t get that level of involvement in her biopic, it doesn’t sound like The Fire Inside would’ve gotten her approval to be made. She desired to make certain it was a good depiction of her story since she is going to still be boxing and has “a life to live” after it comes out.
Recreating her childhood home in The Fire Inside
Earlier in our chat, Shields praised Destiny for her portrayal of her. Having just seen A Complete Unknown before The Fire Inside, I used to be amazed at how they recreated Bob Dylan’s old apartment.
An identical approach was taken with The Fire Inside. Shields said that “the whole lot was pretty spot on,” right down to the varieties of beds she and her siblings have within the movie.
Most significantly, the scene where the youngsters are digging for scraps for breakfast is authentic. “We did not have a number of food at home,” Shields said. “My mom did her best — she was fighting through addiction on the time. I just remember all we had was one another, and all I actually had was boxing.
This resulted in added motivation for Shields, who was wanting to turn into greater than a one-hit wonder to supply for her family. “I used to be like, I even have to figure this out for us, so I put all my time and energy into boxing,” Shields concluded.
The Fire Inside is in theaters.
